Several weeks ago I reported having done some workshops on diversity, equity and inclusion. I would like to share some more ideas that came from that work, specifically today on two forms of bias that can contribute to treating others unfairly.
One is unconscious bias, stereotypes or prejudices we carry around with us unknowingly. We can pick these up from past personal experiences or having them passed on from others. We often see the unconscious biases of others while missing the fact that we have our own unconscious biases.
In order not to promote any of the popular destructive biases, I will provide some ridiculous examples just to demonstrate what I mean:
Watch out for redheads! The are all very emotional and can fly off the handle at a moment’s notice.
Men are more skilled at engineering and scientific topics.
There is absolutely no basis for either of these and yet some people consider them to be factual and never question their validity. Many unconscious biases relate to gender, nationality, race and religion. They can cause people to make decisions and take actions based on invalid ideas. By the way, you can have positive unconscious biases as well as negative ones.
Our best defense against falling victim to unconscious biases is to always question our assumptions and seek out evidence on the topic. When others question our unconscious biases, see this as an opportunity to investigate further.
This, however, leads to the second form of bias: confirmation bias. It is human nature to be comfortable in the things we hold to be true. If you believe redheads to be explosive personalities, you may ignore ten mild-mannered redheaded persons but when you see one who is volatile, there is a tendency to say “Just like I always thought. Redheads are highly emotional”.
In that way we reaffirm our prejudices and harden our beliefs even if they are unjustified.
We see what we expect to see
We look for behaviors in others that match and confirm our existing beliefs
We overlook or ignore behaviors that contradict our beliefs
I would like to go back into my broadcasting career experience and share a concern with you. When I worked at a major radio station in Chicago in the early 1970s, one of my responsibilities was to document the evidence that the station where I worked was fulfilling its obligation to the community by airing all reasonable sides of any controversial issue. It meant that if we had a conservative on our airwaves, we also made sure to give equal time to a liberal. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which controlled licensing of the airwaves, referred to this as the Fairness Doctrine. Any station which flagrantly ignored this concept could have their license to broadcast revoked since the airwaves are the property of the public.
A major change was occurring in broadcasting during the 1970s. The broadcast radio waves were being expanded by adding the FM band to the preexisting AM band allowing for several times as many stations in every community. The television spectrum added the UHF stations to the preexisting VHF (channels 2 through 13). This was expanded even further through cable TV, satellite channels and the Internet. As a result the FCC removed the Fairness Doctrine, saying that each broadcaster no longer had to present all reasonable sides of an issue because there were enough outlets that if one station didn’t broadcast a certain position, another one would.
But the flaw in that thinking, in my opinion, resides in confirmation bias. Under the Fairness Doctrine, whatever station I watched or heard delivered all reasonable viewpoints to me for consideration. But now people often get only one viewpoint from their favorite channel in many cases and are content not to seek out opposing viewpoints. For that reason in the US as an example, conservatives watch Fox News, while liberals watch MSNBC, and each has their viewpoint hardened because they are not presented with any arguments from the other side.
I personally enjoy channel-surfing, checking the news from a variety of sources — even from different countries. In that way I feel informed about all viewpoints and can make a more informed decision about what to believe.
Herb